Taking gambles on Primm, Nevada

0:00It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, we look at the future of the little casino town, Prem, Nevada, right on the California border. It's named after the casino developer Ernie Prem. And his grandson, Corey Clementson, remembers that back in the 1990s, the town was popping. The hotels were packed. It was filled. People were obviously having a great time, you know, drinking, gambling. What I remember is you had kind of a carnival type of atmosphere here. Today, Prem is nearly empty and two of its three hotels are shuttered. But Clementson and the rest of the Prem family are hoping to resurrect this town.

0:37You know, the magic can come back. It might not be exactly like it was 30 years ago, but can it be great in different forms? Absolutely. Prem will be back to some better days, hopefully sooner rather than later. Consider this. The town of Prem, Nevada, has seen its fortunes fade as casinos have proliferated across America. So can the family that owns Primm turn the town's luck around? From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

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2:15it's consider this from npr prim nevada is just a blip on interstate 15 about 40 minutes outside of Las Vegas. 30 years ago, it was a thriving tourist stop. Today, it's nearly a ghost town. So how has Las Vegas managed to adapt to shifting gambling trends while casino towns like Prem have not? And what will it take to bring Prem back to life? My co-host Elsa Chang traveled to Nevada to learn more. When the Desperado roller coaster first opened up in 1994, right here on the Nevada state It was one of the tallest and fastest in the world, and Corey Clementson was among the first to ride it. Front car.

2:56You were in the front car? Front car. Are you a screamer? No, but I screamed on that ride. I went and kept my eyes shut. Out of genuine terror. Yeah, it was a great moment. The roller coaster was the latest attraction in a little casino town called Prim, which was named after Clementson's grandfather, Ernie Prim. The Prim family still owns all the land this town is built on. Prim would be the first place you would spot across the Nevada border, cruising from L.A. to Vegas. The first place you could gamble. Three great hotel casinos, 4 ,200 slots, 10 restaurants. It's a must-stop. Back in the 1990s, TV spots like this advertised the thousands of cheap rooms.

3:37And visitors would flood into Prim, not just for the gambling and the roller coaster, but also for the rodeos, boxing matches, performances by stars like Aretha Franklin and one of the top outlet malls in the country. But those massive crowds feel like a distant memory now. What would this place look like in front of us, this parking lot? Packed. Packed? Cars? Would it be hard to find a parking spot? It would be. On the weekends, it'd be nearly impossible. There was great anticipation with what Prim was doing and where, you know, Prim is kind of on top, right? Because the investment in a roller coaster is a big investment.

4:14Was there a feeling of like, this is going to get bigger and better? I think for anybody who was here, it was never going to end. And what does it feel like right now in this moment, Corey, to look at this inert roller coaster? It's faded. It's rusting. Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Today, the loudest sounds in Prim are the trucks speeding by on the highway and the lone crows looming over empty parking lots. Two of the three hotel casinos here have closed. That's Whiskey Pete's and Buffalo Bills. Then a couple months ago, the company that operates these properties, Affinity Interactive, announced that it would be closing the third and final hotel, laying off hundreds of staff.

5:03And that is when Clementson and the rest of the Prim family decided to step in, teaming up with a Nevada convenience store company called Terribles to try to resurrect this ghost town. If you can turn a ghost town into greatness again, there's not anything you can't do. And so why not go for the challenge? Why not us? But how do you bring back the people to Prim? So there used to be a monorail that went going across the freeway from Whiskey Pete's over here. Or maybe that's a lot of a people mover here to get people from one side to the other. That is David Schwartz, a gaming historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

5:42And that people mover is now abandoned, gathering cobwebs and bird poop. But Schwartz says that train is a reminder of Prim's potential. That was a time of big dreams. And when Vegas itself was thriving so much and just expanding and exploding, why not? Because it seemed like this would last forever. So tell me why a town that used to be thriving like Prim was turned into a ghost town. So if we go back to 1975, pretty much the only place you can gamble legally in a casino is in Nevada. Fast forward 1976, casino gambling legalized for Atlantic City, New Jersey. 1980s, you have the proliferation of tribal casinos and you also have the beginnings of riverboat casinos in the Midwest.

6:29Fast forward to the 90s. Now you have casinos at racetracks, 2000s, more land-based casinos in cities all around the country. Then what happened is you have the proliferation of tribal casinos in Southern California. Okay. And what did tribal casinos offer that, say, maybe a town like Prim did not? Well, convenience. A lot more convenience. Instead of having to drive all the way to Prim, you could just drive a much shorter distance right up the road. and it's really hard to say, hey, we're going to invest millions of dollars here based on vibes. Based on what vibes? Yeah, based on, well, hopes.

7:05Hopes of the future. Optimism. A faith in our ability to reinvent ourselves. You know, yeah. Wow, now that's a sign from the heavens. It is. We just got some thunder. Yes, because rain in the desert is a promise of new beginning. and rain in the desert is a good thing. I feel like the places that can do more to reinvent themselves, to offer different things, just like Vegas did, are going to do a lot better.

7:34What brings you to Vegas, baby? Expensive casinos. We're here for a convention. Wizard of Oz, it was great. Oh, in the sphere. Yep. Good food. Really good food in Vegas. Oh, Omega Mart. You've got quite a lot of cards here with a broad selection of women. I'm married, I don't get a game. So I will throw him into the closest trash can I can find. We went ATV riding. We had dinner at the top of the world. And we're going to bed. You're going to bed? It's only 7 p.m. We've been up since Saturday. It's Tuesday. When you stand on the Strip in Vegas, just 40 miles from Prim, you are in a totally different universe.

8:16The tourism numbers in Vegas are almost as high as they have ever been before. I asked David Schwartz, who also met us here, why does Vegas continue to thrive, even as casinos have been popping up all over the country? What Vegas did differently was they invested a lot of money in building things like the Venetian, like Mirage, like Sphere, sports teams coming here now, Allegiant Stadium, T-Mobile Arena. All that stuff gives people a reason to come to Vegas instead of going to a casino closer to where they live. Right. And you come to Vegas, I feel like, not just to gamble. Yeah, a lot of people who come to Vegas don't gamble at all.

8:52And at one time, the casino owners would have panicked. Now, it's not such a big deal because they're selling rooms and concerts and all that stuff. Speaking of concerts, a recent addition to the Vegas skyline is The Sphere, a$2.3 billion entertainment venue. It's a lot more expensive than other venues might be, but it's a real premium experience. And I think it helped to prove another time that, yeah, people will pay for that premium experience. Yeah, people will pay for innovation. And Vegas has managed to survive by continually placing bets on the next big thing. Now, the question for Prim Nevada is, can they do the same?

9:34We've got to make one of the greatest comebacks in Nevada history. That's what we've got to do. Corey Clementson says he is going to ignore all the naysayers. This is a tall order. This is definitely a tall order, but I think there's a lot of possibilities here. Including a possible new airport in the next decade or so, just a mile or two from Prim. And he's hoping that airport will bring tourists here the same way the highway once did. I think what Prim needs to do is modernize in its own unique way, and we have to figure that out. How does Prim compete with a city like Vegas? Vegas is not that far away.

10:12I think you have different price points. It's always been a more affordable option. Prim might also be the only town that has a bootlegger buried upright with a whiskey bottle in his hand. I'm talking about Whiskey Pete, the namesake of one of the shuttered hotels. At least, this is how legend tells it. I've heard multiple stories, but I've never seen where he's been buried. I don't mean this to be a morbid question, but would you want to be buried on the premises here? I don't think so. I don't think my wife would. No, I love my grandfather, but I'm not thinking about my obituary just yet. Nor is he thinking just yet about the obituary of Prim Nevada.

10:53This episode was produced by Erica Ryan and Tyler Bartlum. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Timmy Aramias. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.

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